The SMOM is an elite Roman Catholic Knighthood headed by a Grandmaster who works at the behest of the Pope. Membership is derived from Politics, Industry, Finance, Military, Intelligence, Media and Entertainment. Knights and Dames first swear loyalty to the Pope and then to their country. "Defending the faith" and helping fellow members while serving the Order constitutes their ethics.

Friday, 29 August 2008

Joseph J. Larkin

Six months before the war broke out in Europe, Joseph J. Larkin brought off his most audacious scheme in the Nazi interest, acting in collusion with the Schroder Bank. Aldrich and the Schroders secured no less than $25 million American for the use of Germany's expanding war economy and accompanied it with a detailed record (supplied direct to the Chase Bank in Berlin for forwarding to the Nazi government) of the assets and background of ten thousand Nazi sympathizers in the United States. The negotiations were engineered with the help of Dr. Walther Funk and Emil Puhl.

In essence, the Nazi government through the Chase National Bank offered Nazis in America the opportunity to buy marks with dollars at a discount. The arrangement was open only to those who wished to return to Germany and would use the marks in the interest of the Nazis. Before any transaction could be made, such persons had to convince the Nazi embassy in Washington that they were bona fide supporters of German policy. They were told in pamphlets sent out by the Chase National Bank in Manhattan that Germany could offer glorious opportunities to them and that marks would provide a hedge against inflation and would have much increased value after victory b in the expected war.

The 1941 list also included Joseph J. Larkin. According to Charles Higham's Trading With the Enemy (see review in this issue),

Joseph J. Larkin . . . [vice-president of Chase Manhattan Bank in charge of European affairs] kept the Chase Bank open ....... in Nazi-occupied Paris throughout World War II. .... [He] had received the Order of the Grand Cross of the Knights of Malta from Pope Pius XI in 1928. He was an ardent supporter of General Franco and, by extension, Hitler. Morgenthau first suspected him as a fascist sympathizer in Octoher 1936. ..... With the encouragement of Schacht, Larkin took on the Franco account and the Reichsbank account, though the Reichsbank was under the personal control of Hitler. ..... 7

Flashing back on the fact that Standard Oil VP Joseph J. Larkin was made a Knight of Malta in 1928. This might seem nothing until one realizes, as H.R.J. Hine is noting in The Knights of Malta, that the Fascist government of Italy "set about restoring the city of the knights in Rhodes, the undertaking was celebrated by an international assembly of the knights in 1928...(Hine 255)." That book also shows me the exact appearance, via a photograph on page 270, of what one of those medallions, conceived of innocently enough in the 1700s-and usually used with total goodwill and innocence--actually was. It bears an uncanny resemblance to the Nazi Iron Cross. Photographs sprinkled throughout the text of the Maltese Cross in various formats --on flags and medallions--also reveal its closeness to the grim Nazi-allied Ustashi of Yugoslavia's flag. (It should be noted that the Knights of Malta, as an organization, was opposed to Fascism, but there were indivduals from that humanitarian organization who were clearly used by Allen Dulles for his Spring/Summer 1944 illegal negotiations with the Axis reported on by Loftus and Aarons.)

In charge of European affairs for Chase was Joseph Larkin, a member of the Knights of Malta and a fascist sympathizer. (An abnormal number of Nazi and their supporters were members of the Knights of Malta.) Larkin, like McKittrick has a long history of aiding the Nazis. Perhaps the first example of Larkin aiding the fascist was in 1936, when he refused a $4 million account for the Loyalist of Spain. When a similar account was opened in the Paris branch, he had the Paris branch withdraw the deposit. However, Larkin gladly accepted accounts by Franco and the Riechsbank.